Max: Yeah, well I saw him on tour some time ago and also Alice Cooper lives here. I was going back from England one time and Alice Cooper was on the same plane as me and we chatted a little bit. It was pretty cool. But I don´t go out much when I´m here. I just kind of stay at home and chill out. When I´m not touring, this is the place to recharge the batteries.

I understand. Tell me about the new album and where did you get the title “Blunt force trauma” from? That´s something you hear every time you watch a cop show, “it´s blunt force trauma to the head”.

Max: Yeah! (laughs) It´s a medical term that I learned and I really liked it and thought it would be a really cool name for the record. It´s very strong and when I heard what it means when you get hit in the head with an object that causes blunt force trauma, I thought “That´s perfect! That´s the sound of the album!”. I just told Igor about the name and Igor was cool about it, you know. We do everything half and half in the band, so I consulted with him and when I said “I´m thinking about calling the album ‘Blunt force trauma’. What do you think?” and he said “Yeah, that´s kick ass!”. It´s a cool name, so we just went from that. I like it. I think it´s an unusual name, more of a medical term. I´ve never had an album named after a medical term, so first time. There´s still some new ideas, believe it or not! (laughs)

Great! How long did it take to put it together? When did you start working on it?

Max: It took me like a year with the riffs, writing the riffs, selecting the best ones, writing at home with a drum machine. It´s almost like complete songs. I´ve got the drum machine so I have all the parts. The songs have intros and choruses. It´s almost like complete songs and then I show them to the other guys. I spent a year collecting those songs and then I sent a copy of that to Igor, to Brazil. My favorite 12 tracks that will be the songs on the album and he gets familiarized with them and starts thinking of beats to put on top of them. Then we take that cd to the studio and just transform that cd into an album. Evey day we pick a song from that cd, like “Today it´s song number two!”. Then we work on them. But it was the fastest recording I´ve ever done for a long time, since the 80´s. I think we finished in six days. Everything recorded in six days. Drums and most of the guitars, which was amazing! You don´t hear about that in this day and age. Everybody spend months on their albums and we did everything in a week. It was super punk rock! Everything played live and we didn´t have to touch much up on the Pro Tools and we didn´t use much Pro Tools at all. Just for a couple of beats, but most of it was live music and I´m very happy with the results. I think Logan did a great job engineering and created the sound that we wanted. I also think the album is heavier and more aggressive than the first one, which is something I did on purpose. I wanted to create a second record that went further down on the heaviness, so I´m very happy with “Blunt force trauma”. I think we achieved what we wanted to.

Oh, definitely! What is it about Logan Mader in the way he works that works with Cavalera? Does he have some certain skills that you like?

Max: Yeah, we work really good with him. He´s an ex member… you know, he was in Soulfly for a year after he left Machine Head and he´s a guitar player, so you can talk to him like a musician, like one and one. Like I talk to Marc or Igor. He´s almost like a band member in the studio. A fifth band member and he´s done some fantastic records, man. His sound is on Gojira´s last record and Devildriver. He´s just really coming out, man, as one of the best engineers now and really easy to work with. There´s no stress working with Logan. He´s like “I´ll do my best to get you this drum sound that you want and if you want a heavier guitar sound, let´s try this!”. He helps me with the vocals and gets me to dig deep into my vocals and try to find some new stuff. I did some high pitched vocals on songs like “Warlord” and “Burn Waco”. High pitched that I haven´t really tried much on the other albums and it came out a lot more on “Blunt force trauma”. Working with him is a really good experience and he´s become like a fifth member in the studio.

Right! Looking ahead into the future, you´ll probably be working with Logan again, I guess?

Max: It probably looks like it although I like diversity and I don´t like to stick with the same thing for too long. It was the same with Scott Burns and we only did a couple of albums with him and then we moved on to Andy Wallace and then Ross Robinson with Sepultura and with Soulfly I recorded with Toby Wright and Terry Date and I´ve moved on to different guys through the years, because I like to kind of keep exploring new possibilities. There´s always something new you can learn and there´s always some new way to record. I also like to go overseas. I´m thinking about the next record I do, which is probably going to be Soulfly, I´ll probably like to do it somewhere over in Europe because I haven´t done a record in Europe since Sepultura´s “Chaos AD” and that was in England, in Wales. I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed the change of environment and all that really get´s through the album somehow. You do come up with a different record in a different place. It´s a weird way how it happens, but it does happen and it does transfer into the album in the sound and the vibes and you probably get something that you wouldn´t get if you weren´t in that place. I like that. That idea to record somewhere else and we´ll probably do that with the next Soulfly album.

Do you have any thoughts of a producer you´d like to work with for the next Soulfly album?

Max. No, there are some people that I´ve heard, that I like, but I haven´t gotten down to… when it comes closer to the album and I´ve got the songs done, when I´m finished writing the songs, that´s when I´m gonna think more seriously about which guy to get for the record.

I was kind of wondering about the logo for Cavalera Conspiracy? It´s very simple and works brilliantly. Who came up with that for the first album?

Max: That was Igor! He´s really good with design and stuff like that. He wanted something very minimal, but very powerful too. I think he was inspired by Black Flag, the four dots they had. He really liked that and he has that tattoo on his arm and he´s a big Black Flag fan and when he designed the “Cavalera”, I really liked it from the beginning. I thought it was awesome! It´s simple, catchy and it symbolizes the band and it´s got every element that we wanted. You can spray paint that on the wall and it looks cool! (laughs) We stick to it and I´m glad Igor did that. I´m happy that we work like that. We share everything. We share the artwork, music ideas, song titles. Everything goes back and forth and it´s a really cool 50/50 collaboration kind of band. I really enjoy that. Everything is run by both of us, right down to the middle so everything goes through us.

Before you came up with Cavalera Conspiracy, were there other names floating around for the band?

Max: Yeah, we were gonna be called Inflikted for a while. That was the first name that I had and I was really liking it, but then one day I came up with Cavalera Conspiracy and Igor just loved it from the beginning. It´s so powerful and it is our conspiracy, the metal brothers coming together again, back to the metal world and we do what we do, so I just decided to switch Inflikted to the name of the record and it became the title of the first album. I like it! It´s a little bit unusual to use your name and it´s kind of like Van Halen, when you have your family name for a band, but it works for us so it´s cool.

Most definitely! I just read that you´re working on something with Greg from Dillinger Escape Plan and that it´ll be a full length album. Could you tell me anything about that?

Max: It´s really in the beginning right now and we´ve actually just been talking on the phone. Greg loves Nailbomb and he´s trying to get me to do a Nailbomb kind of project. He´s saying we can do something very similar to Nailbomb where the both of us sing, like me and Alex and what we had and it will be what me and Greg have. We´re gonna share the vocals and I think the drummer from mars Volta might be the drummer and the bass player from Converge might be playing bass and we´re looking for a guitar player right now. But it´s gonna be like a project, not a band like Cavalera Conspiracy or Soulfly. It´s gonna be just a one off album, something heavy to put out there. Something that me and Greg like to do. I had a great experience with him working on “Rise of the fallen” and we became good friends and he started calling me about this “Nailbomb part 2” idea and I couldn´t say no. I just thought it would be great and I´m really looking forward to it. I´d like to do as much music as possible, so he came with a new project for me.

Is this something we´ll se released before the end of the year?

Max: Ehmmm, no! It´s not gonna come out until next year, because it´s gonna take some time to get all the people involved and all the writing, we have to write all the stuff and he´s actually coming here at the beginning of March and he´ll spend one week here in Phoenix with me and we´re gonna do the first writing of the stuff and we´re gonna take it from there, but it´s probably not gonna come out until next year.

Right! I´m kind of wondering about when you write songs? When you´re writing music, do you ever write stuff that is in no way connected to Soulfly or Cavalera? Do you write softer kind of music?

Max: I´ve tried to write some different stuff. I have some kind of Dead Can Dance, Pink Floyd kind of songs that I wrote. Really weird and I haven´t done anything with it. I couldn´t find a place for them. They didn´t fit Soulfly or Cavalera. They´re too strange! I don´t know what I´m gonna do with them. Maybe one day I´ll make a record with it, a really kind of strange, different kind of record. I write all the time and my main thing is to write heavy songs. I write those all the time, but here and there I grab the guitar and I have this idea for something a little bit more melodic or more weird and I start fucking around with it. Sometimes it´s actually pretty cool, the stuff that comes out of it.

Working on songs and lyrics, do you ever get writer´s block?

Max: Oh yeah! Sometimes I´ll be playing and it´s total garbage coming out of the guitar and “I gotta get out of here! I´m wasting my time!” and I have to go do something else like read a book or something. It´s just like everybody else. There are times where I really need more inspiration and I think “Soulfly 3” was probably where even the name of the album was not that great, you know. I just called the album “Soulfly 3” and that´s not a very original name and it´s not like it hasn´t been done before and I kind of felt that it was a low point in my career, as far as creativity was concerned. I was really kind of short of ideas and I ended up selling myself short a little bit with calling it just “Soulfly 3”. Most of the time I´ve been pretty lucky and I´ve been pretty active and have had pretty reasonable good ideas the last couple of years.

When do you see the new Soulfly album coming out? Is that next year as well?

Max: I´m just gonna let it roll naturally. Whenever we´re ready, we´ll be ready. I´m probably start writing at the end of this year in my house and whenever I´m done with the Cavalera Conspiracy tour, it´s probably gonna be somewhere around September/October and then I´ll probably start writing some new stuff for a Soulfly record, but I also have the thing with Greg and I´ve gotta balance both of them and I don´t know which one of those two is gonna come first. It´ll probably be the project. Soulfly is on a little break now, so it´s probably gonna be a little while until the next Soulfly record comes out, which I think it´s cool because I think it gives Soulfly some time to breathe. We´ve been putting albums out every year since ´98 and it´s been kind of nonstop. It might be cool to have a little break and reorganize ourselves for the next one, which is gonna be the eighth studio album. It´s quite amazing to have eight albums with a band, so I´m looking forward to make something special out of that one.

Ok. You´ve worked with a lot of different people on different records and there are just some names that are really interesting. How did you get to work with Sean Lennon?

Max: We were going to Australia for a big festival, the Big day out, and Sean sat across me on the plane and automatically we started talking. He knew about Sepultura and asked we what I was doing. I said I had a new band, Soulfly, and I gave him a cd and we became friends on that flight. We were next door to each other in the dressing rooms and we shared a bus in Australia, so we became kind of like buddies and everywhere we would go, Sean Lennon was there. After that I came back home and I had his phone number and thought “Yeah, I´m gonna give him a call! Maybe we´ll do something together.”. He might be one of the most different people I recorded with, but I think it´s really cool. He´s Sean Lennon! I thought his music was really kind of strange and weird and cool, you know. He came to Phoenix and we spent a week on “Son song”. I took him to the mountains, I have a house in the mountains, so we wrote a bit there and he came up with the main riff, which is a melodic riff and Sean had it and it´s the part that he sings and then I came up with the rest. He actually produced that song because the producer went home for the weekend, he was going through a divorce and he wasn´t there for the weekend that Sean was there. Sean actually took over the board, which I was really impressed by. He knew everything about the board. He knew how to operate all the buttons, so he pretty much produced the whole song. It was really cool to watch somebody doing that. I´ve never seen a musician that knew anything about the board. Normally only the engineer touches the board, but he knew everything. It was pretty amazing!

Have you stayed in touch?

Max: I did for a little bit from time to time. We saw him again in Japan after that and when I was in New York doing some press I bumped into him. It´s been a couple of years now, but a friend of mine has bumped into him and said that he said hi to me and that was just last year, so I hope I can see him again soon. He´s a really cool guy!

And then working with Mike Patton on “Lookaway”. How did that happen?

Max: He´s a good friend. When Faith No More went to Brazil, I was still living in Brazil at the time and they stayed with my brother. Mike actually went to my brother´s beach house and spent a whole week there, so we became kind of good friends. Enough to go and hang out together and go to places together. It became a really cool friendship with them apart from being big fans of their band and vice versa. When it came time to do “Roots” I told Igor I wanted to call Mike and do something with Patton and that it could be really amazing. The engineer knew Jonathan from Korn and I also brought him into the song, so it was me Jon and Mike which was awesome! Three crazy singers doing all kinds of weird noises and shit and it was really wild, man. Mike showed up with a suitcase and in it he had a bottle of wine and a reverb machine for his voice. He said “That´s the reverb I use on my voice all the time with Faith No More and I only use this reverb, so your guy has to work with me!”. I don´t know anybody that shows up with a bottle of wine and a reverb machine in a suitcase! “You´re whacked, man! You´re out of your mind!”. So he just got into the studio and opened his suitcase like a secret agent, like James Bond. “Alright, here´s a bottle of wine, gimme some glasses! Plug me in!”.

You and Mike should do something more together!

Max: Yeah, Mike´s really artistic and he´s done some crazy shit. All the collaborations he´s done. I love Mr Bungle. It´s amazing and the musicians are so good on it and of course all the Faith No More stuff. I always loved his voice. I like the schizophrenic vibe that he gives to the songs.

Yeah, that´s a good word for it. It is schizophrenic in a way.

Max: Yeah, it´s chaotic and watching Mike live is also great. I always love watching Faith No More live. He´s always up to something crazy and fucking with the audience. It´s always great to watch him live.

A final thing. I know you´re playing Metaltown in Gothenburg, but are there any chances of you coming back for more dates in Sweden or is that gonna be the one off show?

Max: There´s a possibility of us coming back later in the year and doing a headline club tour through all of Europe and that would include Sweden. We´re discussing that right now. We´re not totally booked yet. Right now we´re only officially on the festivals, but there´s a chance of us coming back, sure.

onsdag 23 februari 2011

"My Chronicle colleague Joel Selvin wrote, in a review of the Van Hagar "5150" tour in the mid-1980s, that Sammy Hagar ruined two bands when he joined Van Halen. (Hagar responded by giving out Selvin's phone number to the crowd. I was 15 years old, and in attendance. I swear I didn't call, Joel ...)"

Dez: Yeah, I´m in New Mexico and it´s the first day with no snow on the ground and I´m happy.

You´re kidding, you´ve had snow there?

Dez: No, we´ve had snow for the last month. We went up and did Canada, so…

Well, yeah, we just got hit by a blizzard today right here in Stockholm.

Dez: Yeah, it´s really nice to not have any snow on the ground.

The new album then? I guees since you´re all located in Santa Barbara and close to LA, how come you ended up in Texas for the recording of the album?

Dez: Well, we found the place out there, the Sonic Grange, and it´s a beautiful place and it´s on 3600 acres and in the middle of nowhere. They´ve got over probably 3 million dollars worth of just gear and they´ve got the top notch recording studio in the world. It´s actually THE top notch recording studio in the world. The way that his studio is built is just unbelievable and even the sound quality and there´s nothing to do out there. You can´t even get a cell phone reception, so you go out there and you make art. Once we found that place years ago, we keep returning because you can go out there and just be surrounded by nothing other than your art and it´s important to do that when you´re making a record.

Right! What did Mark Lewis bring to the record?

Dez: Mark Lewis brought a lot to the record, man. He found the tones, he took the time, he pushed everybody on the technical side and he pushed me on the vocal side. He really brought a lot to the table.

Could you have produced the album yourselves or is it essential to have a producer?

Dez: Well, in some cases it is, I think. I mean, you have five guys with five different ideas and it´s important to channel all those ideas to one person otherwise it could get very condiluted and all of a sudden it becomes somebody´s record, you know what I mean. If a band member produces it, it can be “Well I produced it!”, so I think the five of us with all our different ideas, it´s gotta go through a producer. You find that that guy brings a lot to the table and he brought a lot to the table when it came to the music. He took a lot of time guitar tones and stuff like that and he wasn´t afraid to speak up if something wasn´t right and you really need that. You need an outside influence I think. Those musicians that do produce their own records, I actually think they´re doing themselves a disfavor. I think the music could be better with an outside source telling you that it´s good or bad, you know what I mean. I think it´s essential to have a producer.

Andy Sneap then? Were you there when he was mixing it?

Dez: No! I was not there, but Andy was mixing from London and I´m in California and Andy likes to work alone anyways. He´s not a guy you gotta sit over. He knows exactly what he´s doing.

Alright. How´s John doing, because I read the other day that he was sick.

Dez: Yeah, he got sick for a show and we had to fly Kevin Talley out to do the Chicago show, but he looks like he´s feeling good now. I just saw him about five minutes ago. It looks like he´s gonna make the show tonight.

That´s good. Was there any defining moment or anything that led you into the more aggressive music, so to speak? Was there a major influence or a record…?

Dez: You mean, coming out of Coal Chamber into Devildriver?

Well, anything that led you into this kind of music. Anything that made you feel like this is home?

Dez: My influences have always been the same, man, from Coal Chamber up till now. I love Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim… I love Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, GBH. I love Black Sabbath and fucking Judas Priest. I love fucking tons of fucking black metal bands and tons of death metal bands. I love tons of blues, Howlin´Wolf and Muddy Waters. I love music. My influences haven´t changed, just the musicians around me are able to do different styles. Let´s say for instance, in the beginning of Coal Chamber we were doing aggressive music that was aggressive for us, but I think this is aggressive for Devildriver. I think each band has its own aggressive tendencies, if you will.

True. Writing an album like this, are there any main song writers or does every single one bring something to the table?

Dez: Everybody writes parts and bring to the table and I´m the only one that writes lyrics. I write all the lyrics, so we work together. They get everything down on demos and they give it to me and I arrange it as much as I can and put vocals to it and then we go back and forth talking about it. We pretty much go into the studio with pre production done and I think that´s an important thing. We don´t go in and then spend three weeks with the producer in order to pre produce our music. So in that essence, yeah, everybody brings something to the table.

Were there any other titles floating around before you settled on “Beast”?

Dez: No, that was it! It´s a word that encompasses the music within the record and it´s a word that encompasses us as a touring machine. It´s also a slang word in California for cool, so everywhere I go it´s all I hear. Like “That movie was beast! That meal was beast!”. So “Beast” is all around me and it just seemed perfect. It´s one of the only times we had the title before we even had all of the full record.

Cool! Since the music industry is what it is today, as a band today, what are your thoughts on selling actual records these days? I mean, do you hope to sell a lot of records, where do you stand as a band?

Dez: I think anyone with a record deal right now should be happy that they´ve got somebody giving them money to make a record. I don´t think about… nobody out there, especially in the underground of blues, punk, metal, nobody out there is making money off record sales, so I don´t really think about it. Once they give me the money to make the record, I know they´re gonna make their money back plus some, otherwise they wouldn´t have taken the chance, because that´s all it is. It´s a bank loan and it´s a bank that trusts you. After they make their money back, I don´t care. I´m not caring about the record sales part of it anymore. It´s just dying daily. The number one record over here, that got the number one spot a month ago, only sold 40000 records. The lowest sales in history that got the number one record. Usually 40000 sales will get you like number 40 on the Billboard chart. It´s losing ground every day and it´s obvious to me that all the record companies are gonna disappear soon and that´s the way of the dodo.

Do you think you´ll end up creating your own label or whatever?

Dez: I don´t know! I don´t have a crystal ball. I´ve got tarot cards, if you want me to read them? (laughs) I haven´t been trying to figure any of that out. I´ve got my head down to the grindstone, I´m making music and touring and that´s where my head is at. Whatever the record industry is at in five years, I´ll be there! I´m not worried about it.

Ok. What´s going on in Santa Barbara?

Dez: I don´t live there anymore, man! None of us live in Santa Barbara anymore. It´s where we met and it´s where we came out of and eventually everybody moved elsewhere. It was a great place to come out of, because it was a very small town. It´s why we met. It´s a very small town and everybody knew each other and then Jeff moved to LA, I moved outside into the mountains to get more private and get away from people, so none of us live there anymore.

Alright! Well, I passed through Santa Barbara a few years back.

Dez: It´s a beautiful place! It´s amazing!

It is! Touring wise then? I guess you´re going through the States now, but what´s after that?

Dez: Well, we just did our full Canadian run first time ever and almost all the shows were sold out. We´re finishing a few shows in America right now. We go home tonight after the show. Ten days later we go to Australia with Iron Maiden and Slayer at Soundwave. Then we come home for two or three weeks and then we go out with a very special package. We´re main support for a very, very special band, but I can´t tell you right now because it hasn´t been announced. It´s nothing but touring until probably late 2014. I´m gonna grind the fucking wheels off this thing. The way it should be done!

Wow! When are you guys coming over here? Are there any plans for Sweden?

Dez: Oh yeah, definitely! Are you kidding? For sure! We just don´t know when, but Sweden, yeah we´re definitely coming back there.

Looking forward to it! Thank you so much Dez!

Dez: I appreciate it, man! I appreciate the support, man! Thank you very much! /Niclas

måndag 21 februari 2011

Där ser man!

Från Billy Corgans Twitter:

"Just found out the weirdest news: our bass player Nicole (@xocoleyf) just admitted she is one of the girls on the cover of Siamese DreamShe said she didn't want us to know because she thought maybe we wouldn't let her be in the band"Lite udda får man väl säga./Niclas

"Copies of new monster tome ready to ship! This is the fourth in the series of my reviews books, only this time I’ve written 1,748 reviews and buddy and BW&BK scribe extraordinaire David Perri has written 1,619, for a total of 3,367 reviews covering albums from the last decade.The book is 580,000 words and 572 pages of metal madness covering the continuing catalogues of all your ‘70s and ‘80s favourites (these are mostly by me, the old guy) and all manner of newer metal stuff (this is mostly David… dude goes to 100 concerts a year and is a metal wiz and wicked smart writer). Lotsa crossover, but yeah, I wasn’t going to be able to do this alone, and David’s vast knowledge of metal’s last 15 or so years makes this such that we’ve covered most of the major artists and albums in this anvil of a heavy tome – a crazy undertaking. Also included is an exclusive promo 14 track Metal Blade Records sampler."

Info från förlaget:

“The Collector’s Guide To Heavy Metal: Volume 4: The ‘00s is the hotly anticipated new addition to a celebrated franchise of album review books from Martin Popoff, heavy metal’s most famous journalist. Martin’s previous volumes tore into and reconstructed the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, with each book being a hot seller for CGP, causing endless debates into the night for metalheads worldwide. But there’s a twist this time: the book is a co-write between Popoff (author of 30 books on the genre), and David Perri, prolific star-in-the-making journalist for Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, 14 years in print, now gone digital (Popoff was Perri’s Editor In Chief). Making full use of their respective areas of expertise, Popoff and Perri attack the albums each knows best, collectively amassing approximately 3400 headbanging, no punches-pulled rants, with band’s catalogues represented alphabetically then chronologically, the writer of each review identified, and a grade out of ten confidently offered. A closing appendix records each writer’s Top 100 heavy metal albums of the decade, sure to provide ammunition for a continued war of words about this controversial series. The battle rages on!”

Man, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to you last time you and David were in Stockholm, at the Grand Hotel.

DA: Yeah, that was a good time and that hotel is awesome. I love it!

I was looking at the Whitesnake website and going through all the pictures there from the studio and you all look so relaxed and like you had a ton of fun.

DA: We did! I think it really reflects in the sound on the record. It´s a little more loose overall in a good way, I think. I think it was set up that way by David in the very beginning of this record where he said “Let´s involve everybody as much as we can on this record!”. “Good to be bad” was more David and I holed up away at his house, whereas this one, David rented a special house for us to work at and everyone could come and it was great.

These places Snakebyte and Grumblenott, are those David´s own studios?

DA: That was the places we rented. Grumblenott was the place we rented. There were two houses that David rented. The first one had an amazing view of the lake and a beautiful home and because of that view, you never felt like working. You just wanted to go out on the deck and drink beer. Then we got Grumblenott studios and it was funny because there was no view, you were just stuck in the middle of these big pine trees and we got a lot of work done.

Cool! What was it like recording in Lake Tahoe?

DA: It´s awesome there man. It´s a really small village and there´s not much going on, so there´s not much distraction. You´re able to focus on what you´re doing and I actually got a real love of Lake tahoe, because it´s in this part of California and Nevada where a lot of westerns were shot there, a lot of western tv-shows and I like that vibe.

Yeah, I went through Lake Tahoe three years ago on a five week road trip of the US. A great place!

DA: What kind of road trip was it? By car or bike or…?

By car. It was me and my dad and my three brothers all through the us.

DA: Oh man, that´s great!

Yeah, we loved it! We had a blast and saw it all. Grand Canyon and everything.

DA: Whose idea was it?

It was actually my dad´s and he brought us all along and we stayed in really nice hotels.

DA: Did you go through Texas?

Yeah, we went through Texas. We were in Houston and got to see the Johnson Space Center.

DA: Cool! Grand Canyon is awesome!

It is! We went down to New Orleans and then up through Utah and everywhere.

DA: Great! Did you get some good food on this trip?

Everywhere.

DA: Yeah, that´s why I was asking you about Texas, because they´ve got this Texas barbeque that´s really good. On Interstate 40 which runs east to west and on the southern side, near Texas and Okalhoma, when you get near Oklahoma and Texas, they´ve got this place where they say if you can eat the whole steak it´s free. It´s a giant steak. I´ve never tried it, but I know people who´ve tried it and they couldn´t do it and you have to eat all the potatoes and everything that goes with it. That´s funny! But back to the interview! That´s cool though, that you guys took a family trip.

When did you start writing for the album?

DA: We started… well, really I started at the end of 2009 working on ideas on my own. David had said that he might wanted to make a record and maybe it could be more acoustic based. I started working on a lot of acoustic stuff and the first song we wrote was in January in 2010, which was “One of these days” which is kind of acoustic based and then little by little we started getting into some heavier stuff. Somebody else told me that maybe the record´s not quite as heavy as “Good to be bad”, but they enjoy it more, so I think that´s kind of how I feel too.

I think it´s got a bit more of the classic Whitesnake sound. I´ve been listening to it for the last couple of days and I´ve got some favorite tracks on there. Especially the title track, “Forevermore” where David sings really good and there´s a really cool melody to it.

DA: You know what? That was the last song that we wrote. That was at the very end. I said to David “I´ve got this idea for an acoustic thing that could potentially turn into a real epic, because there´s so many places that song could go.”. It could´ve been a heavy song or do one verse and then when it got to the chorus, you´d bring the band in. There´s a lot of different ways to do it, but I showed him the basic stuff and the melody that he sang was pretty much exactly the melody that he did. Obviously he had real lyrics to write, but his melody was so cool. The first chord to that thing is major and then it goes to a minor chord on the second chord. He just hit that note right away and his tone is so huge, so then the song just kind of stayed on its own until we got control of it and then it got heavy. We´ve taken a couple of weeks off, so I haven´t talked to David about it, but we did do a straight acoustic version of “Forevermore” and it´s just amazing. I hope you get to hear it! It´s super good and no drums or electric guitar and it´s just really cool.

Nice! How do you work together? Does he bring stuff like melodies and riffs as well or is that mainly you and he brings the lyrics?

DA: No, no! It´s very organic. A lot of the stuff that is more guitar based, the heavier stuff, I might give him the basic ideas but then we work on it together and he goes “Hey, let´s work on that part!” or “Let´s work on this a little bit and try this!”. David´s a great musician! He plays guitar great and he plays keyboards great. He plays a lot of percussion too, believe it or not. For some songs he said “I have this idea, take it away and see what you can do with it!” and I just take it away and do my best and see if I can develop it. I know what kind of sounds he´s looking for and one of the songs that turned out really cool was “Fair thee well”. He said “I´ve got this little melody thing and I don´t know if it´s Whitesnake or not but I want to see what you think!”. He played it for me and I said “Honestly I don´t know until we work on it. We should just see where it goes.”. We took it downstairs to the studio and started working on some guitar parts for it and then we found a drum beat that was nice and a bass part. I said “I don´t know if this is a Whitesnake song or not, but it´s really cool!”, but once he started singing on it properly it was like “Yes, it does sound like Whitesnake!”.Sure does. It´s a good song. Was it your plan from the beginning to produce it yourselves and who´s this guy McIntyre, who´s also producing?

DA: That´s a guy that´s been working with David for probably 25 years. He was part of David´s road crew actually in 1987. He was part of the touring party and then little by little he… I think he started assisting David around the time when David did Coverdale/Page and it turns out that he´s a super valuable guy, he´s a very tech oriented guy so when it comes to Pro-Tools and computers, he´s very intelligent about that. He´s got a great metal ear. He´s more interested in the heavier things than the acoustic stuff. He´s just very valuable. We played him songs that we were working on and he´d go “Yeah, that was cool!” and we´d play him another one we were working on and he´d go “It needs to be more heavy, man! Let´s get some balls to it!”. There were a couple of songs where I could tell that he thought it might be to light for Whitesnake, but when it got down to recording it got more like Whitesnake.

Ok. What was it that made you guys sign with Frontiers, or was that all David? Were you in that business part as a band?

DA: The reality of Whitesnake is it´s David Coverdale. That´s his brand and with regarding to that business, It´s got nothing to do with me, but I know that David was really inot finding a label like Frontiers that was supportive of him and decided on them. This kind of relates to your last question because when Frontiers asked David of whom he wanted to produce it and David said “I want the Los Bros Brutalos, same as the last record!” and they were like “Oh, who´s those guys? We´ve never heard of them!” and he said “That´s me and Doug and Michael McIntyre. You liked ‘Good to be bad’, right? And they went “Yeah, we really liked it!” and David was like “Well, there you go!”. They were really supportive of David´s decision and to be honest Niclas, we´re just experimenting in the studio. We´re just trying and we´re no experts or anything. I think we´re good at finding the sound that David is looking for and once he´s happy, that´s what it comes down to.

Well, it sounds really good!

DA: Thanks, man! I´ll tell you one thing that really helped a lot this time, and that was that we got a new computer rig that´s more efficient. The last record we were sitting there trying to mix it and the thing kept crashing all the time and it was driving me nuts, you know. It would crash and then you opened the song back up in the program and it wouldn´t sound the same. It was like “Whooh, is it the same or is it just my ears playing tricks?”. This time, with the new computer, it worked out really well.

Do you know if this deal with Frontiers is a one album deal or are there options for another album?

DA: I have no idea! I would imagine it depends on how this record goes and if David is happy with it and everything, maybe he would consider doing something else. I know he´s got another release, “The Monsters of rock at Donnington 1990” and I helped him work on that a little bit from an engineer standpoint. I think that is coming out on Frontiers as well. It´s a great show!

The title of the album? You said the song “Forevermore” was the last one, did you have that title before the song came?

DA: No, it was interesting… we knew the song had potential to be special, but it wasn´t until David texted to me one day, and I was back in LA working on stuff, he texted me “The song we worked on last is gonna be called “Forevermore” and wait till you read the lyrics!” and I was like “Oh, that´s so cool!”. So next time I went up to Lake Tahoe, I was basically going back and forth to Lake Tahoe every week, and when I got up there he showed me the lyrics and it was beautiful. I don´t know who it´s about or what it´s about exactly. I have my own ideas, but that´s what I like about his lyrics, they´re open for anything, but I could tell it made the song complete and it was very special. Like in any of these songs the lyrics are a massive part of it. I mean, you can have a great melody and stuff and a great chord, but without a great lyric it doesn´t mean anything! You need a great lyric, so I was blown away by it and the he said “I´m thinking of titling the record “Forevermore”!” and it´s perfect. It´s one of those things where David is so clear about making these types of decisions and it´s great to have a leader like that. I might not have thought of it, but it´s obvious. “Forevermore” is a great way to title the record and it really encompass the feel of the songs. Maybe it encompasses his whole career and hopefully it will last forevermore.

True. Were there a lot of leftovers from the recordings? Stuff that you decided to let it be?

DA: There was a few. Then a song like “Whipping boy blues” was kind of a leftover from “Good to be bad” and it was the second song that we wrote for this record and it used to be called “Crazy about you”, because the lyric went “Crazy about you” and we had a version of it but it wasn´t blowing either of us away, but David said to me at the end of “Good to be bad”, “What do you think, should we work on that song and include it on good to be bad?” and I said “I don´t think so! I think we should come back to that and I think we´ve got enough things that are like that already.”. Then we got together this time and started working on it and I was a little hesitant, but then we kind of found the chord progression and it started to make sense and then the lyrics started to make sense and it just turned into a really cool song and it´s probably one of my favorite songs on the record now. It´s just got that old kind of bluesy thing to it and I really enjoyed it. Once I got it done guitar part wise, David worked on his parts and I was really happy with how it turned out.

Definitely! You´re releasing the album in a special version with Classic Rock Magazine and is that the new way to reach out to the audience? There was a pretty big band here in Sweden that did that last year and it sold pretty good actually.

DA: I guess. It´s a kind of multimedia thing and they´ve been supporting Whitesnake for a long time and supporting David´s career, so I think it´s gonna be great for the record and it´s also gonna be interesting for the fans of David to read about all the different variations of Whitesnake and the different people involved in the records and tours and also Deep Purple and probably Coverdale/Page too, I would imagine. It should be pretty cool.

You´ve worked closely with Reb Beach now and you´re a great guitar duo. Is there something special that makes work so good?

DA: I think we´re just really different. We had a little bit of growing pains in the beginning where there were a little bit of… you know, it´s always hard when you´ve got two guys that are used to being the only guitar player on stage. When you put those two guys together there´s gonna be a little bit of competition and there´s no way around it and then sometimes that can turn into a little bit awkward situation here and there, and I really don´t like that. It´s not comfortable. The competition part can bring out some fire in you. This has pretty much always been a two guitar band from the get go and David made that clear. I really couldn´t think of anybody else I´d rather work with in Whitesnake than Reb, really. Our styles are so different. He covers one aspect and I can cover another and he´s just a brilliant guitar player. He´s very schooled and I think he went to Berkley College in Music for a while and then it seems like he basically let all that stuff go, because now he´s a total feel player. He plays off the cuffs and we really bonded a lot more on this record I think, than we ever have before. I´m really happy about that. I´ll tell you another thing Niclas, that makes it cool. In the beginning we used to butt heads on how to play this part or how to play that and now we both relaxed a lot and speaking for myself, I really appreciate how Reb plays differently. For exampla, a song like “Fool for your loving”, the main riff, he plays it his way, I play my way and together it sounds really cool live. When it came to the studio record, “Forevermore”, on the first single for example, we worked on that together, me and David and Michael and when Reb came in to do his parts I showed him the ideas that we had and Reb took it and did it his way and I really loved it his way. I wound up learning it how he played it. Then on “All out of luck” I had a basic solo idea that I showed Reb and he asked “What songs do you think I should play on?” and I said “I don´t know! Just play on whatever you want and just play the progression of the solo section and see what feels good!” and I really looked forward to hearing his take on how things would be played and then he basically did it his own way and it was awesome! It was really cool to watch that. We´re in a good spot right now and we´re both really happy about playing this stuff live.

Cool! Playing stuff live, how do you put together a setlist for this tour and do you have any idea what songs from the new album you´ll be playing? Are you gonna pull out some old Whitesnake gems?

DA: That sounds like a good idea to me! I think there are a couple of Whitesnake gems that really need to see light of day this year. I´m not gonna say which ones, but I have some favorites. There are a couple that I´ve been talking about for years, like this one song “Lonely days, lonely nights” (Come an´get it 1981 Editor´s note). I love that song and maybe we could do something like “Wine, women an´ song” (Come an´get it 1981) or… I love “The gambler” (Slide it in 1984) and that would be cool. We did do a medley for a while at one point that had “Lovehunter” and “Walking in the shadows…” and “Slow and easy” I think and so maybe a medley, like we did with “Burn” and “Stormbringer”.

Absolutely! A friend of mine suggested you pull out “Steal away” from the “Snakebite” EP and that you play the slide guitar.

DA: That sounds cool to me! I´ll check it out! Basically it comes down to David. We´ll go “Dude, we gotta try to do ‘Burn’ or something!” and he´ll play it a few times and if he likes it then it stays and if he can´t feel it, then we´ll just dump it. I was actually really pushing to do “Mistreated” and he did it. We did it a couple of times and sang amazing on it, but he just wasn´t… it was just kind of slow and it didn´t really seem to fit the Whitesnake set and he said “I´m just not feeling that song!”. I always look too and I was joking around and started playing “Mistreated” on an acoustic guitar with a slide and he started singing it and it was like “Whoa, that´s cool!”. You never know. A little piece of a song might end up on an acoustic part or something.

Nice! Were you involved in Devin and Tichy joining the band or was that all David as well?

DA: No, no, no, I was definitely involved in that! I was a huge cheerleader for Tischy. David said that he might wanna make some changes on the lineup and I said “If you do, Brian Tichy is the best drummer out there right now!” and he said “Well, that was the original drummer that we talked about to get in 2003.”. Marco Mendoza who played bass with us at that time had been tight with Tommy Aldridge and we thought that made sense at the time. They were friends and they´d played a lot together. So Tichy came in and I was so happy. I´d seen him and met him a couple of times. I´d seen him play on TV with Foreigner and I´d never heard Foreigner sound so bad ass. It´s a great band, but it was heavy, man! He´s just a killer player. We did some jamming together in the beginning of 2010.It was a benefit for a friend of ours who had a child who had a problem and I was blown away with his playing and playing with him was amazing. Then when we got him, he suggested a couple of friends of him who plays bass and one happened to be Michael Devin. Michael´s got a real blues background, because he played with Kenny Wayne Sheperd and some other blues guys as well and he´s like a real blues aficionado. He really knows it and he´s got a really good voice. His playing is super fat, very simple and he just lays it down. Those two guys are friends and they´ve been playing a lot together and that´s one of the major points this record has, Tichy and Devin.

It sounds like you clicked right away?

DA: We really did. I mean, from the get go. When we got into pre production and rehearsals, I told the engineer that was gonna be recording drums, to come down and check it out, because if we could capture the sound that he had in that rehearsal room, then we would be rocking. He came down and heard it and said “Yeah, that´s doable!”. We got him in the studio and messed around with microphones for a little while and finally we agreed that it sounded pretty good and we started recording and then when we took the tracks away from the studio and started doing overdubs, we could really hear that Brian set the tone for the record. He really did.

Cool! So far you´re just playing one date in Sweden, you´re back at Sweden Rock Festival, but do you have any idea if you´ll come back for more dates later on?

DA: I think we will. We´ve got to! Sweden Rock is such a big festival for Sweden and all of Scandinavia really or whole of Europe really. It´s a massive festival. I´m sure we will. There´s nothing like spending some time in those cities. One of my favorite places in 2009 was up north in Umeå. It´s beautiful and real traditional, or I don´t know, it just seems very traditionally Swedish and I´d love to go there again. It´s a little difficult to get there, but it´s a really beautiful town. So maybe at the end of the year, who knows? Maybe in the wintertime we´ll come back.

That would be awesome! A whole other thing, the latest guitar you bought? Do you still buy guitars?

DA: Yeah, I do. The last one I bought, and I used it on the record a lot, was a 1970 Martin D 28 and I got it really cheap on Ebay. I checked the serial number and the guy didn´t really say what it was, but I knew it was Indian and I got if for a really good price. It showed up and I thought it was a bad deal in the beginning. It was in a soft case and it was just beat up and it smelled like an ashtray. It looked so bad, but I took the strings off and scrubbed it down with polish and worked on it for an hour or something. Then I put new strings on it and tuned it up and holy shit it sounded amazing! It really sounded great! It still smells a little bit and it really had like dirt on it and stuff. Then recently, some guitars got lent to me. I´ve got a friend from Sweden who´s a real close friend. He and I will always go on Ebay and look at guitars and collect guitars together a little bit. He lent me a 12 string and that was cool. I´ve gotta tell you a funny story. He´s my Swedish connection really. I´ve got a lot of friends in Sweden like Michael from Opeth is a really good friend.

Alright! He lives not that far from where I live.

DA: He´s a great, great guy! The Europe guys are friends and Mikkey D from Motörhead and Oscar and those guys in Hammerfall. This buddy of mine lives in LA and I was at a party at his house, he was having a Swedish party and we had some miniature lobsters and all that stuff. We were on line and he has a Les Paul and there were only about 200 of them made. It was Gary Rossington´s guitar, so we´re looking online and looking at the serial number and he starts freaking out “Oh my God it´s the sister of my guitar!” and he got so freaked out that he signed and he bought it. He hit the button. He hit the button to buy it immediately, which means you have to buy it. I said “Hey Peter, you just bought that guitar!” and he goes “What do you mean? Are you serious? My wife is gonna kill me!”. So I ended up writing that guy a letter and the guy let me buy the guitar, so I got the sister guitar. It´s so funny, because he´ll bring his guitar over and we´ll set up all the guitars in the backyard and take pictures of them and we got the brother and sister together. (laughs) Yeah, so he lent me a couple of guitars for the recording and actually Paul Reed Smith lent me a couple of guitars and they´re really nice.

Who´s playing keyboards on the album and who´ll you bring on tour?

DA: We´re figuring that out right now. Rehearsals start in a couple of months, so we´ve got a little time to figure it out, but the guy that played on the record was our last keyboard player, Timothy Drury. He played on most of the songs, but there are really four songs that he gave a little heavier treatment which was “Forevermore”, Fare the well”, “One of these days” and “Easier said than done”. He did a great job and came in for like three days and one of the remixes… we´ve got about ten remixes and we did a remix of the single “Love will set you free” and I redid the guitars and put a really classic, bluesy guitar sound to it and with the keyboards cranked up it sounds really nice.

One last thing! Have you got anything else going besides Whitesnake? Any projects you´re working on?

DA: I´m pretty much 100 percent dedicated to Whitesnake. I have a project that is pretty much written and it´s called Burning Rain. I´ve had this band for like ten years, but this time I´m really just working with David. I´m involved in the live show and helping get everybody prepared for the tour and helping David with what we should play.

Well, it´s been a great pleasure talking to you again Doug and I hope you get to play Stockholm again!

DA: Absolutely! I would love that, man! We did some shows with Europe and that´s a pretty great bill, Europe and Whitesnake together, so maybe we could work that out.

Yeah, that would be cool! Thanks again Doug!

DA: Hey Niclas, thanks for your time man and have a great night and we´ll see you in Sweden!

torsdag 17 februari 2011

1. Bridges Burning2. Rope3. Dear Rosemary4. White Limo5. Arlandria6. These Days7. Back & Forth8. Matter of Time9. Miss the Miserly10. I Shoulda Known11. Walk——————12. Stacked Actors13. Pretender14. My Hero15. Generator16. I’ll Stick Around17. Enough Space18. Times Like These19. Cold Day in the Sun20. Big Me21. Watershed22. Long Road to Ruin23. Skin & Bones(OK, this is where I get confused on the order but I’m pretty sure this is it or very close)24. Aurora25. All My Life—————–26. For All the Cows27. Monkey Wrench28. Hey JP29. Everlong30. Best of You31. Butterflies32. This is a Call

1. Too young to fall in love2. Shout at the devil3. Run for your life4. I will survive5. God bless the children of the beast6. Black widow7. Looks that kill8. Red hot9. Running wild10. Black widow (Take 2)11. Knock ém dead kid12. Hotter than hell/Niclas

Same as here then. If we dive right into it and I guess you´ve answered this question a million times but I´m wondering about the name Children of Bodom and if you´ve ever gotten any reactions from the relatives of the victims in that incident?

Janne: Yeah, sure. I mean, it is the biggest unsolved murder mystery in Finland and it is a pretty big thing.

Right! Where is that lake? Is it in the southern parts?

Janne: Yeah, it´s in the southern parts, in Esbo about half an hour from downtown Helsinki, so it´s not far at all.

The new album then, when did you start working on it?

Janne: We started about a year ago and the actual studio sessions started in June or July last year.

Who are the main songwriters in the band?

Janne: Alexi writes all the music.

Oh, he does!

Janne: Yeah, yeah! He brings his riffs and stuff to the rehearsal room and the we kind of arrange the songs with the whole band.

When you work in the studio, do you first demo a lot of the stuff?

Janne: We did. Actually this time we recorded demos of all the songs, which is pretty cool. We have a new rehearsal room and we´ve got a little set up there. As we went along, I had mices set up and everything so every time we finished the arrangements of a song, we just recorded a rough demo version of it. Then we actually spent a couple of weekends of recording a little bit better pre production demos for the producer. I think this time it really helped the main studio sessions when we recorded a couple of demo versions. It gives you a better perspective on a lot of other things.

How long does it usually to get a song all together?

Janne: Sometimes it´s days and sometimes it´s weeks. It really depends. Some songs we end up arranging and arranging and making changes and then sometimes you can put a song together in two or three days. It really varies.

I´ve talked to a lot of bands considering the technology of today, with the risk of overdoing songs or keeping on rearranging a song, does that ever happen to you? Do you ever have to go, "That´s it it´s done!"?

Janne: Well, I mean what you´re talking about, but we don´t tend to overdo stuff. We just record it and that´s it. We don´t spend hours on making little edits or whatever. I guess for us, the overdoing thing isn´t that common for us.

With Alexi bringing in all the stuff, the rest of you guys, do you come up with stuff as well and it all gets turned down or…?

Janne: No, we´ve just realized that it´s the best for everybody if he writes all the stuff. I mean, he´s got such a strong vision of how it´s supposed to be. I don´t think all of our stuff would get turned down and of course when we are rearranging and putting songs together, everybody´s got ideas about the songs. I think it makes a lot of sense that Alexi writes all the stuff.

I saw that one of the bunus tracks is a an Eddie Murphy cover. How the hell did you come up with that?

Janne: (laughs) Well, we´ve covered pretty much everything already, so there was nothing left to do that would really shock people.

Do you like the original version?

Janne: Yeah! It´s so fucking weird. Eddie Murphy is not much known as a musician and the whole song is so weird and the whole Rick James production. It´s just a crazy assed 80´s song and we decided to do it because it´s fun.

From what album is it?

Janne: I have no idea! Nowdays we have YouTube and when we get drunk we go through funny old videos and songs and it´s been one of those songs that´s always been fun making fun of.

I remember him doing one album where he got all the heavyweights in like Stevie Wonder and it didn´t sell anything. He´s greater as a comedian than as a singer. I saw the trailer for the video and how do you come up with the idea for that? Do you just sit around and say “Well, let´s get some pro skateboarders in here and we´ll throw something together!”?

Janne: (laughs) Yeah, no! It was an idea from the video crew. I was a little bit skeptical at first, then at the shoot when I realized how well it kind of works together, it was fine. But it was not the band´s idea.

long does it take to shoot a video like that? You always hear about it being really boring because you just sit around waiting.

Janne: Yeah it´s super boring, but that one was actually one of the smoothest ever. It took maybe six hours or something. Usually it´s like 16 hours and it´s so fucking boring and unbelievably frustrating, but this one came together pretty easily.

Where was it shot?

Janne: We shot it somewhere in the middle of nowhere at a skate park in the US. Somewhere in Pennsylvania… I can´t really remember.

And getting those guys in there, like Chris Cole, that wasn´t a problem?

Janne: Chris is actually a long time friend. He´s a fan of the band and we´ve done some product placements together and we´ve had some combined merchandise with his merch company. We´ve known him for a long time and he´s a friend of the band.

It seems to be more and more common when you release an album that there are three or four different versions and you have a deluxe version as well with 64 page booklet. Is that in any way worth it these days or is that just money you lose to get your name out, considering that people don´t really buy records anymore?

Janne: Releasing all these different versions I guess I s all record label stuff. I guess they´re worried about album sales and that the whole music business is fucked, so I guess they do what they can and one thing is to release these special editions and try to boost the sales or something. We´ve never had like “Hey, let´s do this and this edition!”. It has nothing to do with us.

Putting a 64 page booklet together, are you not involved in that either?

Janne: Actually yes! That was pretty cool. The photographer who took all the photos and all that stuff and they are previously unpublished, I was there to supervise the final version and it´s actually a lot cooler than… I mean, to me it sounded really lame. “A photobook? C´mon!”, but it´s really well put together and it´s actually pretty cool.

Who took the photos then?

Janne: A Finnish guy. His name is Jussi Hyttinen and he already took the photos for the previous album, but this time we did a lot more work with him and he made the cover art and all that stuff.

I was kind of wondering about the album title, “Relentless reckless forever”? How do you come up with a title like that?

Janne: You know, I don´t know! (laughs)

I mean, I speak pretty good English, but there´s no way I´d come up with that.

Janne: Well, my parents put me through piano lessons when I was five and I started with classical stuff of course and then I got interested in other stuff and by the age of ten I got into the Pop jazz conservatory in Helsinki. I studied there for six years, but then again after that my interest in jazz music has really… I have a funny relationship to that. Every three years now I pick it up and try to play jazz and then I get really tired of it. (laughs) If I´m honest, I don´t really have a great talent for it. You need to have a spark or whatever and really really understand jazz and I don´t have it. I mean, I like it and I like to listen to it now and then, but it´s not really my thing.

Are there any similarities in any way between jazz and the metal stuff you do in Children of Bodom?

Janne: Well, I play a lot of solos and a lot of the stuff in my solos lately, as I try to play outside the comfort zone, I wouldn´t call it jazzy or anything but of course there are like chromatic passages and playing a bit outside the scales, so it is somehow related to jazz.

Cool! But studying for six years, jazz and classical music, what was it that made you end up in metal?

Janne: It´s actually a funny story. I had quit playing the piano and the keyboards totally for a year. I just decided to quit playing and I don´t know why. I was supposed to concentrate on my studies and I kept playing the drums. I was a drummer in a punk band back in the day so I was just concentrating on playing drums and studying and then Jaska called me up and asked if I´d like to try and play keyboards in a metal band and I said I could try. Then I got stuck with it.

Do you buy jazz records and listen to jazz these days?

Janne: Yeah, I listen to jazz every now and then. Not that actively, but every now and then when I have free time I do check out some stuff.

Do you have a favorite jazz record?

Janne: Well, no… I was pretty much into fusion and the modern stuff and I listened to a lot of Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, but I don´t have like a favorite jazz album.

Well, I took a real dive into that whole jazz fusion stuff in the early 90´s with guys like Lee Ritenour and all that kind of stuff. More old stuff, what memories do you have from your first album? I read that Alexi thinks that the first album is the worst.

Janne: Well, you know… I was 17 when we recorded that and we were kids and didn´t know anything about anything and obviously we´ve come a long way and grown as musicians and as human beings, I hope. I mean, I´m not the biggest fan of the first album, but we were still searching for our style and playing our instruments. Of course I´m proud of it and we did the best we could at the time, but I don´t really listen to it. (laughs)

As a musician, do you go back and listen to your own stuff just for fun?

Janne: Yeah, sometimes but not often though. If I´m in my house drinking with my friends and someone mentions an old CoB song, we might dig out the album and listen to some of the stuff and have a few laughs. Sometimes when I´m waiting at an airport or something, I might listen to some of the old stuff for fun, but not much.

What can you tell me about the "Ugly world tour”?

Janne: I´m really pleased with that we´re gonna start playing in Europe this time, because the last time I think we went to the US first and then it was too late to headline with that album in Europe. I´m really glad that we´re starting in Europe first. I don´t think we have released any of the other dates, but it´s shaping up as a full world tour.

Yeah, you´ve been all over the place. The US, Japan, Taiwan and China. Those places, do they differ a lot from say the US or Europe?

Janne: Yeah, China and Taiwan was pretty different and you can tell how like the people organizing the shows are not that used to doing it. The show in Hong Kong was great though. It was real organized and everything went fine, but the other shows like Taiwan was pretty unorganized and kind of weird experiences.

I interviewed Doro Pesch and when she played China they had to hand them all the lyrics and stuff in advance. Did you have to do that?

Janne: Not that I´m aware of. No one told us to do anything. If something did happen it was all handled by management or the promoters.

Being able to travel the world, how much time do you actually get to see those places? Like when you played Hawaii?

Janne: It really varies. The schedule for the Asian part last tour was really hectic and there was no time to go anywhere. Sometimes there´s just no way to go and see places, which really bums me out. But like in Hawaii we spent like four days there. We played one show and then it was all relaxing on the beach and doing all kinds of cool stuff. If there´s time I really do try and go see places and not just sit in your hotel room or in the tour bus.

You´ve been doing this for a lot of years, is it still fun and does it still get you excited?

Janne: It´s still fun. Our music is such that we think of ourselves as a live band, so that´s such a important part of our whole thing. We release an album just to go on tour for a couple of months. It´s mostly fun, but then again when it gets really hectic and you only see the airports, the hotel rooms and the venues it can be a little hard on you, but most of the time it´s still fun.

A lot of Spinal Tap moments?

Janne: (laughs) Every now and then. I mean, shit happens! (laughs)

How many dates do you play in Finland this time around?

Janne: I think three. The Helsinki show is gonna be pretty big. A lot of friends coming over.

Gearing up for the tour, how much work is put into the stage show and stuff like that?

Janne: Fortunately we have a great crew and they´re already building the stage and getting the gear together and just making sure that everything´s gonna be there when we start the tour. But you need to have something special on the stage nowdays. The band is currently just doing interviews and we´re gonna start practicing for the live shows in a couple of weeks.

Have you ever thought the instant live cd´s?

Janne: To be honest, I don´t know all the details about that. I know about it, but we haven´t had any serious discussions about it. You never know, we might end up doing it someday, but at the moment there are no such plans.

Alright! I thank you Janne and I´m looking forward to catching you live here in Stockholm.